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A recent article in Jacobin magazine mentions “the new vision of electoral activism on the radical left that began with Kshama Sawant’s election to Seattle City Council”. And while the number and awareness of third Parties and candidates such as the Green Party and the Socialist Alternative has grown somewhat in the past few years, there are still large areas of the United States where no Independent or third Party candidates are on the ballot for the fall elections.

In 2008 the democrats scored a huge victory. The last time the republicans had such a sweep of the legislative and executive branch was prior to World War I. Not World War II - World War I! And yet it all changed in 2010 after two years of democrats pretending they were helpless before the republican minority. What happened and what can we learn?

The basis for our economy and prosperity is our infrastructure. It is one of the ten planks of the Unified Platform. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century wealth could not be massively accrued by individuals or corporations without a strong national infrastructure. Unfortunately with outsourcing and out of country tax havens, that is no longer true. The tragedy of our declining educational system, internet, power grid, roads, and bridges will take years to correct and we are already far behind other countries.

Future generations who pay the price for our foolishness will hold a very low opinion of us. See this report.

And the climate deniers are the ones who are angry!

As Isaac Asimov said, “And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

These questions and responses are very familiar to those of us in the New Progressive Alliance. If you want to explain your frustration to someone, it might save time to just print this list and have your friend read it. Click here for the 15 questions.

Hamid Aboutalebi was Iran’s ambassador toAustralia, the European Union,Belgium,Italyand got a US visa in the 1990s when he was a member of Iran's UN delegation. Iran recently appointed this career diplomat as its new Envoy to the UN - but the Obama Administration effectively nixed the appointment my denying Aboutalebi a visa - making entry to the U.S., where the UN is headquartered - impossible.